The accident happened 10 days ago. The original assessment was all is well. 11 lives lost at sea and an entire rig destroyed and sent to the bottom of the ocean. First to analyze the situation was the Oil company owned by BP, reporting no leakage and containment procedures are underway.

Now over a week and a half later the presumably easily contained spill has the potential to become the largest oil catastrophe in history. With "untold" barrel's apparently leaking (estimates state 1,000 to 5,000 per day) from the source at the base of the gulf floor. President Obama Thursday the 29th has ordered top government to personally appear onsite to collect data as to what is going on.

Florida's Governor Charlie Christ has "commended" and held his breath as many scientist and environmental specialist are beginning to make statements such as "unfathomable situation".

After recent record breaking billion dollar quarters, the leaders of Big Oil are turning to Washington for help. With only a 10-15% oil recovery rate this spill has the potential to devastate coastal regions from Texas to Florida. Many whose livelihood depend upon a clean gulf are looking at the development and envisioning "Katrina like scenario" on steroids that will have long term effects.

Big Oil and Washington have joined forces, the outcome, even the current calamity have yet to be revealed.

For days, as an oil spill spread in the Gulf of Mexico, BP assured the government the plume was manageable, not catastrophic. Federal authorities were content to let the company handle the mess while keeping an eye on the operation.

But then government scientists realized the leak was five times larger than they had been led to believe, and days of lulling statistics and reassuring words gave way Thursday to an all-hands-on-deck emergency response. Now questions are sure to be raised about a self-policing system that trusted a commercial operator to take care of its own mishap even as it grew into a menace imperiling Gulf Coast nature and livelihoods from Florida to Texas.

The pivot point had come Wednesday night, at a news conference at an oil research center in the tiny community of Robert, La. That's when the nation learned the earlier estimates were way off, and an additional leak had been found.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama set in motion a larger federal mobilization, pledging to deploy "every single available resource" to the area and ordering his disaster and environmental leaders to get down there in person. Only a few days after the Coast Guard assured the country there was "ample time" to protect the coast if oil came ashore, warnings from the government were newly alarming.

"I am frightened for the country, for the environment," David Kennedy, assistant chief of the National Ocean Service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press. "This is a very, very big thing, and the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling."

The political subtext of the crisis was clear and increasingly on people's minds, whether from a federal office deploying oil-containment booms or from a Louisiana parish awaiting yet another sucker punch from the sea.

Will this be Obama's Katrina? Should the federal and state governments have done more, and earlier? Did they learn the lessons of the devastating hurricane?

Political calculations vied with the increasingly scary Gulf reality — hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil and its progression to landfall Thursday night. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who also is in a hot campaign for the Senate, flew over the slick and commended the federal actions to date but wondered if anyone, really, could be doing enough in this situation. "It appeared to me," he said, "that this is probably much bigger than we can fathom."

The crisis began with a massive explosion aboard the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon on April 20, more than 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. The search for 11 missing workers overshadowed environmental concerns until they were given up for lost.

Rear Adm. Mary Landry, chief of the Coast Guard in the region, said at the outset that most of the oil was burning off, leaving only a moderate rainbow sheen on the water and no sign of a major spill.

"Both the industry and the Coast Guard have technical experts actively at work," she said. "So there's a whole technical team on both sides of the aisle here to ensure we keep the conditions stable."

Two days later, the Deepwater Horizon sank and crews spotted a 1-by-5-mile sheen with a dark center that appeared to be a crude oil mix. Obama got his first briefing on the accident.

Landry said the following day that no oil appeared to be leaking from a well head at the ocean floor, nor was any leaking noted at the surface.

At the White House, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said that sometimes accidents happen, and the loss of the Deepwater Horizon was no reason to back off on the president's recent decision to support expanded offshore drilling.

Throughout last week and into this one, the government was deferring to BP on what was being done at the site and on assessments of progress.

The Coast Guard was not doing its own independent, firsthand assessment of the seabed rupture. Landry repeatedly asserted that BP was the responsible party and would shoulder the costs and organizational duties associated with the cleanup effort while the Coast Guard monitored things and approved the numbers of vessels working the scene and the methods of control.

On Monday, Landry offered assurances that the Gulf Coast should be safe. "This is ample time to protect sensitive areas and prepare for cleanup should the oil impact this area," she said. And at sea, BP officials were "doing their best."

On Wednesday night, she reported the findings of federal experts that up to 5,000 barrels a day were leaking from the well. BP had estimated only 1,000. As well, the company told the Coast Guard a new leak had been found. Obama was briefed on these developments on Air Force One while returning at night from the Midwest.

By Thursday afternoon, the White House had assembled a team of top advisers to showcase the administration's determination to head off the damage posed by the oil slick. And Gibbs acknowledged details of the president's drilling proposal might be revisited, depending on the investigation into the rig explosion and spill.

The equation had changed, like a hurricane setting a new course.

"It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting"

Personally I believe way overblown. Oil spills are never good, however in this case its light sweet crude oil. Half of it is probably evaporating before it gets to shore. What,s left is fairly easy to clean up as it won't be the gooey mess you see from heavier grade crudes. Also they will get the blowout preventer to seat I'll bet before long. In terms of oil spills this is the ideal crude to spill if you're going to have one.

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist is that the pessimist is better informed.

Do they even have this thing capped yet? I have heard 5000 or so barrels a day.

The silver [is] mine, and the gold [is] mine, saith the LORD of hosts. Hag 2:8 [/b]He created it. He controls it. He gave it to us for His use. Why did we turn from sound scriptural currency that PROTECTS us?

I am not against drilling for oil anywhere on land, but this is the reason I am against drilling off shore. When you are drilling in water that deep there is noway to get a leak stopped quickly enough to keep the environmental damage to a minimum. They say they may not get it stopped for up to 3 months, it could take them that long to get a relief well drilled. Can you imagine the damage that will be done if 5000 barrels a day are flowing into the gulf for the next 3 months?

Sadly the clean up and aftermath of this will fall mainly on the USA (I also think mexico will get some fallout). And the enviro nuts will use this as an example of why we should not allow off shore drilling. First of all this was NOT a USA company in USA waters, it was a British company in international waters. We should send the queen a bill for the cleanup.

Selling Ryedale sorted USA cents 1.5 each + shipping over 500fv 1.5 each +1/2 shippingIf you pick up 1.35 eachlocated MT/ND boarder.after Ryedale sorting they are hand sorted to remove canadian then rechecked with Ryedale to insure all copper and count out $50 FV then placed in cloth bags and sealed with #1 copper wire.

Between "environmental shutdowns" and "lost oil" I cant wait to see fuel and other prices rise.

Not to mention the "borrowing" going to be done to pay for it. Man their gonna milk this one for all its worth.

Baaaad ju ju here.

The silver [is] mine, and the gold [is] mine, saith the LORD of hosts. Hag 2:8 [/b]He created it. He controls it. He gave it to us for His use. Why did we turn from sound scriptural currency that PROTECTS us?

Sadly the clean up and aftermath of this will fall mainly on the USA (I also think mexico will get some fallout). And the enviro nuts will use this as an example of why we should not allow off shore drilling. First of all this was NOT a USA company in USA waters, it was a British company in international waters. We should send the queen a bill for the cleanup.

Like it or not, the American taxpayer has a duty to always bail out the rest of the world. The PTB, via you're favorite leaders, have seen to that.

My spidey senses tell me there is something not quite right here. Maybe this "accident" wasn't really an accident... This incident does help some groups whose political agendas have been stalling as of late. Not like it would be the first time...

How many other offshore wells have just fallen completely in the drink?

Ever?

Just curious.

The silver [is] mine, and the gold [is] mine, saith the LORD of hosts. Hag 2:8 [/b]He created it. He controls it. He gave it to us for His use. Why did we turn from sound scriptural currency that PROTECTS us?

1.) No sex education program does millions of dollars of damage to natural ecosystems, destroys fisheries, or pollutes shorelines that provide money to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people 2.) its not just one incident, as we all know3.) ending offshore drilling doesnt end all oil drilling......you still got land, so it is in no way a 100% shutdown4.) government spending of tax dollars on poverty within ones own nation doesnt really equate to private businesses destroying a global resource for profit

Its not like this is a single small blemish on an exemplary track record for the oil industry.

I am not an environmental nut. I believe in drilling for oil. We have been finding more oil in North Dakota all the time. They say now the last couple of oil fields they have found here have more oil than Saudi Arabia. To me it is just common sense not to drill somewhere where if there is a problem it is 5000 feet underwater where you can't get at it to stop it. Look at all the hundreds of miles of coast line and hundreds of square miles of gulf water that is affected, just because they can't get at the leak to shut it down.

JWRAY, I must disagree with you completely. The worst thing the oil rig disaster did was to kill 11 workers, all of whom were there voluntarily. Beyond that, all of the affects will be temporary.

Government disasters, on the other hand, have destroyed and lessened millions of lives. I can think of little that is more heinous than turning millions of people into perpetual wards of the state in their quest for political power.

VENICE, La. – A sense of doom settled over the American coastline from Louisiana to Florida on Saturday as a massive oil slick spewing from a ruptured well kept growing, and experts warned that an uncontrolled gusher could create a nightmare scenario if the Gulf Stream carries it toward the Atlantic.

President Barack Obama planned to visit the region Sunday to assess the situation amid growing criticism that the government and oil company BP PLC should have done more to stave off the disaster. Meanwhile, efforts to stem the flow and remove oil from the surface by skimming it, burning it or spiking it with chemicals to disperse it continued with little success.

"These people, we've been beaten down, disaster after disaster," said Matt O'Brien of Venice, whose fledgling wholesale shrimp dock business is under threat from the spill.

"They've all got a long stare in their eye," he said. "They come asking me what I think's going to happen. I ain't got no answers for them. I ain't got no answers for my investors. I ain't got no answers."

He wasn't alone. As the spill surged toward disastrous proportions, critical questions lingered: Who created the conditions that caused the gusher? Did BP and the government react robustly enough in its early days? And, most important, how can it be stopped before the damage gets worse?

The Coast Guard conceded Saturday that it's nearly impossible to know how much oil has gushed since the April 20 rig explosion, after saying earlier it was at least 1.6 million gallons — equivalent to about 2 1/2 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The blast killed 11 workers and threatened beaches, fragile marshes and marine mammals, along with fishing grounds that are among the world's most productive.

Even at that rate, the spill should eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident as the worst U.S. oil disaster in history in a matter of weeks. But a growing number of experts warned that the situation may already be much worse.

The oil slick over the water's surface appeared to triple in size over the past two days, which could indicate an increase in the rate that oil is spewing from the well, according to one analysis of images collected from satellites and reviewed by the University of Miami. While it's hard to judge the volume of oil by satellite because of depth, it does show an indication of change in growth, experts said.

"The spill and the spreading is getting so much faster and expanding much quicker than they estimated," said Hans Graber, executive director of the university's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing. "Clearly, in the last couple of days, there was a big change in the size."

Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production, said it was impossible to know just how much oil was gushing from the well, but said the company and federal officials were preparing for the worst-case scenario.

Oil industry experts and officials are reluctant to describe what, exactly, a worst-case scenario would look like — but if the oil gets into the Gulf Stream and carries it to the beaches of Florida, it stands to be an environmental and economic disaster of epic proportions.

The Deepwater Horizon well is at the end of one branch of the Gulf Stream, the famed warm-water current that flows from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Atlantic. Several experts said that if the oil enters the stream, it would flow around the southern tip of Florida and up the eastern seaboard.

"It will be on the East Coast of Florida in almost no time," Graber said. "I don't think we can prevent that. It's more of a question of when rather than if."

At the joint command center run by the government and BP near New Orleans, a Coast Guard spokesman maintained Saturday that the leakage remained around 5,000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons, per day.

But Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, appointed Saturday by Obama to lead the government's oil spill response, said no one could pinpoint how much oil is leaking from the ruptured well because it is about a mile underwater.

"And, in fact, any exact estimation of what's flowing out of those pipes down there is probably impossible at this time due to the depth of the water and our ability to try and assess that from remotely operated vehicles and video," Allen said during a conference call.

The Coast Guard's Allen said Saturday that a test of new technology used to reduce the amount of oil rising to the surface seemed to be successful.

During the test Friday, an underwater robot shot a chemical meant to break down the oil at the site of the leak rather than spraying it on the surface from boats or planes, where the compound can miss the oil slick.

From land, the scope of the crisis was difficult to see. As of Saturday afternoon, only a light sheen of oil had washed ashore in some places.

The real threat lurked offshore in a swelling, churning slick of dense, rust-colored oil the size of Puerto Rico. From the endless salt marshes of Louisiana to the white-sand beaches of Florida, there is uncertainty and frustration over how the crisis got to this point and what will unfold in the coming days, weeks and months.

The concerns are both environmental and economic. The fishing industry is worried that marine life will die — and that no one will want to buy products from contaminated water anyway. Tourism officials are worried that vacationers won't want to visit oil-tainted beaches. And environmentalists are worried about how the oil will affect the countless birds, coral and mammals in and near the Gulf.

"We are just waiting," said Meghan Calhoun, a spokeswoman from the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans. "We know they are out there. Unfortunately the weather has been too bad for the Coast Guard and NOAA to get out there and look for animals for us."

Fishermen and boaters want to help contain the oil. But on Saturday, they were again hampered by high winds and rough waves that splashed over the miles of orange and yellow inflatable booms strung along the coast, rendering them largely ineffective. Some coastal Louisiana residents complained that BP, which owns the rig, was hampering mitigation efforts.

"They're letting an oil company tell a state what to do," said 57-year-old Raymond Schmitt, in Venice preparing his boat to take a French television crew on a tour.

"I don't know what they are waiting on," Schmitt said. He didn't think conditions were dangerous. "No, I'm not happy with the protection, but I'm sure the oil company is saving money."

As bad as the oil spill looks on the surface, it may be only half the problem, said University of California Berkeley engineering professor Robert Bea, who serves on a National Academy of Engineering panel on oil pipeline safety.

"There's an equal amount that could be subsurface too," said Bea. And that oil below the surface "is damn near impossible to track."

Louisiana State University professor Ed Overton, who heads a federal chemical hazard assessment team for oil spills, worries about a total collapse of the pipe inserted into the well. If that happens, there would be no warning and the resulting gusher could be even more devastating because regulating flow would then be impossible.

"When these things go, they go KABOOM," he said. "If this thing does collapse, we've got a big, big blow."

BP has not said how much oil is beneath the Gulf seabed Deepwater Horizon was tapping, but a company official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the volume of reserves, confirmed reports that it was tens of millions of barrels — a frightening prospect to many.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said that he has asked both BP and the Coast Guard for detailed plans on how to protect the coast.

"We still haven't gotten those plans," said Jindal. "We're going to fully demand that BP pay for the cleanup activities. We're confident that at the end of the day BP will cover those costs."

Obama has halted any new offshore drilling projects unless rigs have new safeguards to prevent another disaster.

As if to cut off mounting criticism, on Saturday White House spokesman Robert Gibbs posted a blog entitled "The Response to the Oil Spill," laying out the administration's day-by-day response since the explosion, using words like "immediately" and "quickly," and emphasizing that Obama "early on" directed responding agencies to devote every resource to the incident and determining its cause.

In Pass Christian, Miss., 61-year-old Jimmy Rowell, a third-generation shrimp and oyster fisherman, worked on his boat at the harbor and stared out at the choppy waters.

"It's over for us. If this oil comes ashore, it's just over for us," Rowell said angrily, rubbing his forehead. "Nobody wants no oily shrimp."

"It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting"

This isn't just one accident. There have been 47 accidents in the Gulf. In fact, 4 of the U.S.'s worst ten oil spills have been in the same area.

This just happens to be turning into the granddaddy of them all, eclipsing the Exxon Valdez (the U.S.'s worst spill). It could reach the top ten of all oil spills wordwide and wipe out the nations richest seafood fisheries.

And, all three entities involved (BP and there two contractors--including Haliburton) have bad regulatory records. The regs are toothless and yet these companies still need to violate them.

Now, BP is using hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemical dispersants to simply hide the oil beneath the surface without any concern of the further impact of this pollution on the environment.

This is a bad, bad deal and should instruct us on how we proceed in the future.

Wildji - There are several things I would like to point out. The first is that this is not the end of the world. Chicken Little was wrong, and environmentally at least, the sky is not falling. As I posted before, all of the environmental affects will be temporary. Just look at Alaska - you would be hard pressed to see any visible evidence of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. And since the temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico are warmer than offshore Alaska, nature will eliminate the affects of this spill more quickly.

The second point I would like to make is that no human activity is without risk or mishap. I'm an engineer myself, and I am very interested in reading the final report of what actually happened in this case. But that is beside the point. I am sickened by the hypocrisy that every thing that happens in industry must be examined under a microscope (only when it stands a chance of increasing the Government's power), and yet the almost incomprehensible screw-ups of Government get a free pass.

Published on Sunday, May 2, 2010 by CommonDreams.orgWas the Gulf Oil Spill an Act of War? You Betcha

by Randall Amster

Speculation has been running rampant among certain sectors of the web-world lately about the true origins of the massive oil spill that has engulfed the Gulf and threatens marine, plant, animal, and human health in a region already beset by natural disasters and toxic industries. Unwilling to accept the mainstream media version of the story (namely that it was the result of off-shore drilling activities) and suspicious of the timing of the calamity (namely that it occurred right on the cusp of Earth Day and during a period of political contentiousness over drilling), this faction has surmised that the “trigger event” in this instance may have been (choose your favorite) either: an attack by the North Koreans; an act of homegrown eco-terrorism by leftwing environmentalists; or something to do with Venezuela, China, and/or other Communist (machi)nations. With little more than a hint from an online Russian source, the theory of a North Korean attack in particular has been gaining virulence among certain fox-trotters.

Here’s a great overview of the argument from the self-avowedly conservative Dakota Voice:

“Rush Limbaugh pointed out that the explosion occurred on April 21st, the day before ‘Earth Day.’ He also reminded us that Al Gore had previously encouraged environmental nutjobs to engage in civil disobedience against the construction of coal plants that don’t have carbon capture technology. ‘Eco-terrorists’ exist and have done millions of dollars worth of criminal damage. Fire is one of the main tools of their evil trade. I’m not claiming the Deep Horizon was bombed by eco-terrorists, although I don’t believe it’s out of the realm of possibility. But, it would take some serious money and ability to pull off an attack like that, so I would tend to think much bigger than college hippie eco-wackos with some money-backing — a foreign government, perhaps. Of course, before I could finish writing my thoughts here, I just heard Michael Savage posing the same questions. He also said there is a theory on a Russian website that claims North Korea is behind this. The article claims that North Korea torpedoed the Deepwater Horizon, which was apparently built and financed by South Korea. Torpedoes would make sense for the results we see…. There are a number of international ‘suspects’ who might want to do something like this. They range from Muslim terrorists to the Red Chinese, Venezuela and beyond. Remember that China and Russia are drilling out there, as well, and they would benefit from America cutting back on our own drilling.”

The article at the root of this savagery appears on the site WhatDoesItMean.com, and is titled “US Orders Media Blackout Over North Korean Torpedoing of Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig” — which pretty much eliminates any suspense about the gist of it. The piece is attributed to one “Sorcha Faal,” who either exists or does not depending upon whether you believe the link arguing a bit too strenuously that she in fact does. The article cites as its source, without further attribution, “a grim report circulating in the Kremlin today written by Russia’s Northern Fleet,” and argues that “the reason for North Korea attacking the Deepwater Horizon, these reports say, was to present US President Obama with an ‘impossible dilemma‘ prior to the opening of the United Nations Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons set to begin May 3rd in New York. This ‘impossible dilemma‘ facing Obama is indeed real as the decision he is faced with is either to allow the continuation of this massive oil leak catastrophe to continue for months, or immediately stop it by the only known and proven means possible, the detonation of a thermonuclear device.”

In other words, all of this was designed to force Obama to use a nuclear device to seal the leak ahead of an upcoming conference on nonproliferation. Ingenious! James Bond is alive and well, apparently. Missing from the calculus (along with good sense, credibility, and verifiability) is any explanation of why the logic of this scenario will automatically result in Obama deploying a nuke, and what exactly would be gained by him doing so except (by implication) making the U.S. look like hypocrites at the negotiating table. Those dastardly cowards! Everyone knows that we don’t need any help from foreign entities to hypocritically attempt to force others to hold to international standards that we will ourselves proceed to flagrantly ignore. I mean, duh.

Hey, I’m all for a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy/gal. We certainly ought to question the “consensus reality” version of any major event communicated back to us by the corporate media. And we can logically surmise that the government keeps us on a “need to know” basis under the rubric of a closely-held “national security” ethos. So there’s always reason to dig deeper, ask hard questions, check with non-U.S sources, and formulate one’s opinion independent of the herd. But in this case, the impetus for the tale is so vague and thinly rendered that it strains the limits of credulity, yet it still seems to be gaining traction each day. In fact, there are even more solid reasons to suspect that this miserable episode — which will inflict more suffering on an already-battered region — was contributed to by the activities of a certain homegrown corporation and not any eco-nuts or commies. While the premise is thus wholly wrong, the conclusion that this was a putative act of war might actually hold water. To wit:

Oil and War: Are there any two concepts in the realm of geopolitics more closely associated than resources and warfare? Oil in particular, as the primary lubricant of the global economy, earns special status as a sine qua non of our profligate lifestyles and simultaneously as an overt security interest that triggers our military mobilizations. We know about Iraq of course, and Afghanistan to a lesser extent for its strategic pipelining location, but don’t overlook places such as Venezuela, Central Africa, and the Caribbean shelf around countries like Haiti as potential sites of future conflict over Black Gold. Indeed, it might be said that wherever there’s oil, there’s war — or at least the seeds of conflict over a dwindling commodity that draws the interest of governments and corporations alike. The past decade has shown, and our national security documents reflect, that the U.S. will essentially do anything in its power to control as much of the world’s remaining oil supplies as it possibly can, either through direct intervention or by proxy. There’s nothing light or sweet about any of this; it is almost wholly crude.

Drilling and the ‘War on Terra’: Without overly editorializing the point, since at least the advent of industrialization it appears that humanity has made a Faustian bargain that renders us the enemies of the earth in order to survive. Notions of complementarity and sustainability have been supplanted by consumption and separation instead. The cruel joke is that our willingness to continually flout nature’s laws leaves us in a perpetual state of scarcity and requires a regular doubling-down on the very same logic that made things scarce in the first place. Thus, in order to extend the life of the petroleum economy and provide the massive energy inputs that we rely upon, we have to drill deeper and deeper to procure the substance at ever-increasing energy costs in the process. This literal sense of “diminishing returns” is compounded by the attendant toll exacted on our collective health via fossil fuels, as well as the concomitant stratification of wealth and power that subverts any pretense we still hold of democracy. Massive spills and other calamities are part and parcel of this normalization of a warlike attitude toward nature (and thus ourselves), and are blithely considered little more than business as usual by the ruling elites, as intimated in an article on care2.com: “All this is the result of dangerous and unnecessary offshore drilling, yet in a statement Friday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the explosion was no reason to give up plans to expand offshore drilling. ‘In all honesty I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I doubt it will be the last,’ Gibbs told reporters.”

Halliburton IS the War Machine: Finally, we come to the most likely culprit in all of this, and a sure sign that indeed this is an act of war. Wherever Halliburton goes, so goes the war machine, and vice versa. From no-bid and no-account contracts in Iraq (and post-Katrina New Orleans, by the way) to a massive corporate presence in the Gulf region, these folks seem to have an acute capacity for making a buck on cataclysms of all sorts. Perhaps more to the point, they appear to be at the nexus of most disaster zones, including the erstwhile Bush Presidency and now the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. As a recent article in the Huffington Post notes:

“Giant oil-services provider Halliburton may be a primary suspect in the investigation into the oil rig explosion that has devastated the Gulf Coast, the Wall Street Journal reports. Though the investigation into the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon site is still in its early stages, drilling experts agree that blame probably lies with flaws in the ‘cementing’ process — that is, plugging holes in the pipeline seal by pumping cement into it from the rig. Halliburton was in charge of cementing for Deepwater Horizon.”

The Los Angeles Times subsequently reported that members of Congress have called on Halliburton “to provide all documents relating to ‘the possibility or risk of an explosion or blowout at the Deepwater Horizon rig and the status, adequacy, quality, monitoring, and inspection of the cementing work’ by May 7.” A YouTube video (which is actually mostly audio) more bluntly asserts that “Halliburton Caused Oil Spill,” and notes the fact — confirmed by Halliburton’s own press release — that its employees had worked on the final cementing “approximately 20 hours prior to the incident.” Interestingly, one commenter on the YouTube video notes how “that would conveniently explain the North Korean story; [Halliburton] may have leaked this story to the press to divert attention away from alleged negligence.” Wouldn’t that just be the ultimate? Halliburton spawns the calamity but pins it on North Korea, and then the nation goes to war whereby Halliburton “cleans up” through billions in war-servicing contracts. It’s almost too perfect, and might be funny if it didn’t seem so plausible. (The only thing funnier is picturing Dick Cheney in the role of Exxon Valdez fall guy Joseph Hazelwood.)

But hey, there’s no need to get conspiratorial about all of this. And what’s happening in the Gulf — now spreading into the Atlantic — isn’t funny at all. Indeed, war hardly ever is, and that’s what we’ve got on our collective hands here, in one form or another. As Isaac Asimov once said, “It is not only the living who are killed in war.” Cherished ideals, future generations, hopefulness, the earth itself — all are among war’s many casualties. The sooner we recognize the sense of pervasive warfare in our midst, embedded in the flow of our everyday lives, the sooner we can intentionally turn that essential corner toward peace, as Martin Luther King, Jr. alluded to in his Nobel speech: “I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.” Waking up to war may in fact be the first genuine step toward peace, both among ourselves and with the environment.

Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D., teaches Peace Studies at Prescott College and serves as the Executive Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association. His most recent books include Lost in Space: The Criminalization, Globalization, and Urban Ecology of Homelessness (LFB Scholarly, 2008), and the co-edited volume Building Cultures of Peace: Transdisciplinary Voices of Hope and Action (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).

"It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting"

I can certainly understand the perspective that you are sick about criticism over "every little thing" that happens in the industry is scrutinized. That and the view that, no matter what we do, simply breathing has an environmental impact. These are common slogans of folks in the industries being criticized. I'd hate to be micromanaged to.

However, this spill is not a "little thing". This is a whopper. Sure, eventually the ecosystems will heal themselves. That's a strong likelihood. However, these ecosystems are already under tremendous current and future pressure. There is also a strong possibility that the area will never be the same. And there could be at least one species that goes extinct.

Now, I'll say something even more controversial that you are sure not to like. While I am sorry for the folks who lost their lives, that loss was not even close to the ecological impacts that are currently unfolding. At least one of those employees was there to do a job and did not. I predict one thing you will find out, if the truth ever gets out, is that the leak was not the result of a defect blowout preventer (BOP) as Salazar said today. From my sources, I've learned that it is common in the oilfield industry to override the BOP software when drilling and capping a well. The BOP program is what automatically activates the BOP when TSHTF to prevent an explosion/leak. This was likely done here and, thus, no automatic shutoff to prevent the explosion or the subsequent leak. They could not then manually activate it because the folks who could do so were killed in the explosion. I predict we will also learn that this was not the only significant failure to follow safe protocol and regulations.

It is a human and ecological tragedy. But it is the latter by far. I feel very sorry for and angry towards people who don't appreciate that fact.

Mother of all gushers could kill Earth's oceans

Imagine a pipe 5 feet wide spewing crude oil like a fire hose from what could be the planets' largest, high-pressure oil and gas reserve. With the best technology available to man, the Deepwater Horizon rig popped a hole into that reserve and was overwhelmed. If this isn't contained, it could poison all the oceans of the world.

"Well if you say the fire hose has a 70,000 psi pump on the other end yes! No comparison here. The volume out rises geometrically with pressure. Its a squares function. Two times the pressure is 4 times the push. The Alaska pipeline is 4 feet in diameter and pushes with a lot less pressure. This situation in the Gulf of Mexico is stunning dangerous." -- Paul Noel (May 2, 2010)

The original estimate was about 5,000 gallons of oil a day spilling into the ocean. Now they're saying 200,000 gallons a day. That's over a million gallons of crude oil a week!

I'm engineer with 25 years of experience. I've worked on some big projects with big machines. Maybe that's why this mess is so clear to me.

First, the BP platform was drilling for what they call deep oil. They go out where the ocean is about 5,000 feet deep and drill another 30,000 feet into the crust of the earth. This it right on the edge of what human technology can do. Well, this time they hit a pocket of oil at such high pressure that it burst all of their safety valves all the way up to the drilling rig and then caused the rig to explode and sink. Take a moment to grasp the import of that. The pressure behind this oil is so high that it destroyed the maximum effort of human science to contain it.

When the rig sank it flipped over and landed on top of the drill hole some 5,000 feet under the ocean.

Now they've got a hole in the ocean floor, 5,000 feet down with a wrecked oil drilling rig sitting on top of is spewing 200,000 barrels of oil a day into the ocean. Take a moment and consider that, will you!

First they have to get the oil rig off the hole to get at it in order to try to cap it. Do you know the level of effort it will take to move that wrecked oil rig, sitting under 5,000 feet of water? That operation alone would take years and hundreds of millions to accomplish. Then, how do you cap that hole in the muddy ocean floor? There just is no way. No way.

The only piece of human technology that might address this is a nuclear bomb. I'm not kidding. If they put a nuke down there in the right spot it might seal up the hole. Nothing short of that will work. [See Paul Noel's ideas above.]

If we can't cap that hole that oil is going to destroy the oceans of the world. It only takes one quart of motor oil to make 250,000 gallons of ocean water toxic to wildlife. Are you starting to get the magnitude of this?

We're so used to our politicians creating false crises to forward their criminal agendas that we aren't recognizing that we're staring straight into possibly the greatest disaster mankind will ever see. Imagine what happens if that oil keeps flowing until it destroys all life in the oceans of this planet. Who knows how big of a reservoir of oil is down there.

Not to mention that the oceans are critical to maintaining the proper oxygen level in the atmosphere for human life.

We're humped. Unless God steps in and fixes this. No human can. You can be sure of that.

I really do think that the situation is getting further and further out of hand.

By yesterday morning, the nature of the crude had changed, indicating that the spill was collapsing the rock structures. How much I cannot say. If it is collapsing the rock structures, the least that can be said is that the rock is fragmenting and blowing up the tube with the oil. With that going on you have a high pressure abrasive sand blaster working on the kinks in the pipe eroding it causing the very real risk of increasing the leaks.

More than that is the very real risk of causing the casing to become unstable and literally blowing it up the well bringing the hole to totally open condition. Another risk arises because according to reports the crew was cementing the exterior of the casing when this happens. As a result, the well, if this was not properly completed, could begin to blow outside the casing. Another possible scenario is a sea floor collapse. If that happens Katie bar the door.

quote:Oil Deposit Capacity

The BP people are not talking, but this well is into a deposit that easily could top 500,000 barrels production per day for 10 or 15 years. Letting that all go in one blast seems more than foolish.

The deposit is one I have known about since 1988. The deposit is very big. The central pressure in the deposit is 165 to 170 thousand PSI. It contains so much hydrocarbon that you simply cannot imagine it. In published reports, BP estimated a blow out could reach near 200,000 Barrels per day (165,000) They may have estimated a flow rate on a 5 foot pipe. The deposit is well able to surpass this.

The oil industry has knowledge of the deposit more than they admit. The deposit is 100 miles off shore. They are drilling into the edge of the deposit to leak it down gently to be able to produce from the deposit. The deposit is so large that while I have never heard exact numbers it was described to me to be either the largest or the second largest oil deposit ever found. It is mostly a natural gas deposit. That is another reason not to blast too willy nilly there. The natural gas that could be released is really way beyond the oil in quantity. It is like 10,000 times the oil in the deposit.

It is this deposit that has me reminding people of what the Shell geologist told me about the deposit. This was the quote, "Energy shortage..., Hell! We are afraid of running out of air to burn." The deposit is very large. It covers an area off shore something like 25,000 square miles. Natural Gas and Oil is leaking out of the deposit as far inland as Central Alabama and way over into Florida and even over to Louisiana almost as far as Texas. This is a really massive deposit. Punching holes in the deposit is a really scary event as we are now seeing.

Which makes me think:

quote:Revelation 16:3 3The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead man, and every living thing in the sea died.

A dead man's blood with no oxygen turns black, doesn't it?

The silver [is] mine, and the gold [is] mine, saith the LORD of hosts. Hag 2:8 [/b]He created it. He controls it. He gave it to us for His use. Why did we turn from sound scriptural currency that PROTECTS us?

The chemicals BP is now relying on to break up the steady flow of leaking oil from deep below the Gulf of Mexico could create a new set of environmental problems.

Even if the materials, called dispersants, are effective, BP has already bought up more than a third of the world’s supply. If the leak from 5,000 feet beneath the surface continues for weeks, or months, that stockpile could run out.

On Thursday BP began using the chemical compounds to dissolve the crude oil, both on the surface and deep below, deploying an estimated 100,000 gallons. Dispersing the oil is considered one of the best ways to protect birds and keep the slick from making landfall. But the dispersants contain harmful toxins of their own and can concentrate leftover oil toxins in the water, where they can kill fish and migrate great distances.

Are you a Gulf Coast resident? Do you have direct experience as a laborer, consultant, or contractor on offshore oil rigs? Or insight into how safety and emergency response decisions are made and implemented? Write reporter Abrahm Lustgarten (if needed, you can speak anonymously).

The exact makeup of the dispersants is kept secret under competitive trade laws, but a worker safety sheet for one product, called Corexit, says it includes 2-butoxyethanol, a compound associated with headaches, vomiting and reproductive problems at high doses.

“There is a chemical toxicity to the dispersant compound that in many ways is worse than oil,” said Richard Charter, a foremost expert on marine biology and oil spills who is a senior policy advisor for Marine Programs for Defenders of Wildlife and is chairman of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council. “It’s a trade off – you’re damned if you do damned if you don’t -- of trying to minimize the damage coming to shore, but in so doing you may be more seriously damaging the ecosystem offshore.”

BP did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Dispersants are mixtures of solvents, surfactants and other additives that break up the surface tension of an oil slick and make oil more soluble in water, according to a paper published by the National Academy of Sciences. They are spread over or in the water in very low concentration – a single gallon may cover several acres.

Once they are dispersed, the tiny droplets of oil are more likely to sink or remain suspended in deep water rather than floating to the surface and collecting in a continuous slick. Dispersed oil can spread quickly in three directions instead of two and is more easily dissipated by waves and turbulence that break it up further and help many of its most toxic hydrocarbons evaporate.

But the dispersed oil can also collect on the seabed, where it becomes food for microscopic organisms at the bottom of the food chain and eventually winds up in shellfish and other organisms. The evaporation process can also concentrate the toxic compounds left behind, particularly oil-derived compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs.

Studies if oil dispersal have found that the chemicals used can accumulate in shellfish and other organisms. (Getty Images file photo)Studies if oil dispersal have found that the chemicals used can accumulate in shellfish and other organisms. (Getty Images file photo)According to a 2005 National Academy of Sciences report, the dispersants and the oil they leave behind can kill fish eggs. A study of oil dispersal in Coos Bay, Ore. found that PAH accumulated in mussels, the Academy’s paper noted. Another study examining fish health after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989 found that PAHs affected the developing hearts of Pacific herring and pink salmon embryos. The research suggests the dispersal of the oil that’s leaking in the Gulf could affect the seafood industry there.

“One of the most difficult decisions that oil spill responders and natural resource managers face during a spill is evaluating the trade-offs associated with dispersant use,” said the Academy report, titled Oil Spill Dispersants, Efficacy and Effects. “There is insufficient understanding of the fate of dispersed oil in aquatic ecosystems.”

A version of Corexit was widely used after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill and, according to a literature review performed by the group the Alaska Community Action on Toxics, was later linked with health impacts in people including respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders. But the Academy report makes clear that the dispersants used today are less toxic than those used a decade ago.

“There is a certain amount of toxicity,” said Robin Rorick, director of marine and security operations at the American Petroleum Institute. “We view dispersant use as a tool in a toolbox. It’s a function of conducting a net environmental benefit analysis and determining the best bang for your buck.”

Charter, the marine expert, cautioned the dispersants should be carefully considered for the right reasons.

“Right now there is a headlong rush to get this oil out of sight out of mind,” Charter said. “You can throw every resource we have at this spill. You can call out the Marine Corps and the National Guard. This is so big that it is unlikely that any amount of response is going to make much of a dent in the impacts. It’s going to be mostly watching it happen.”